[xcamel]

Kind of flies in the face of the 250KYA tools found near london a couple weeks ago...

[Ostlandr]

Actually what they're talking about is the apparent evidence that the human race went through a genetic "bottleneck" about 70k years ago. Apparently we went from a thriving species to a small band of survivors.

[AntiGuv]

Kind of flies in the face of the 250KYA tools found near london a couple weeks ago...

No it wouldn't, actually. Not even remotely so even in the very slightest. That doesn't mean it's accurate (see my post above) but your reply is nonetheless unadulterated nonsense.

[MHGinTN]

'250KYA tools' please explain.

[VadeRetro]

Kind of flies in the face of the 250KYA tools found near london a couple weeks ago...

The last common ancestor (whoever he or she was) was just the last of a long line of people from whom we are all descended. You are assuming for some reason that the last would also be the first. The first might have been a very simple cell, or it might have been a very scummy body of water we call "RNA-world."

[AntiGuv]

PS. I did not mean to come across quite so brusk in my last reply to you, but I was in a rush and it sounds a lot more abrupt than I intended now that I read it again.

[Ichneumon]

Kind of flies in the face of the 250KYA tools found near london a couple weeks ago...

No, it doesn't. The "last (i.e. most recent) common ancestor" is merely the most recent, not the only or the first. They, too, had ancestors, and so on back a long, long way.

[muawiyah]

? The point is that one person who lived in Classical times could well be an ancestor of everyone alive today ~ the article said nothing about people before that person.

The 250,000 year old tools would, of course, have been made by them.